


Sweet Surprises

by teasprout



Category: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3358661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasprout/pseuds/teasprout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valentine's Day is finally here and Marta has some big plans for her and Emil! But will everything go as planned? Written from Marta's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy Valentines Fic for one of my best bros, Sam! Special thanks to Shiina for being my beta-reader.

_Ding dong._

“Emil, could you get that?” Marta called to the blonde, who was reading on their sofa. She had completely taken over their room, and had been in there all day. She had made it clear that he was absolutely forbidden from coming anywhere near their door, so he guessed she was doing some last minute Valentine’s gift wrapping. She did the same thing at Christmas, and on his birthday, so it didn’t take him long to figure that bit out. --Though Marta had a bit more planned this year than he realized.

“Sure, Marta." He responded with a smile, closing his book and walking quickly to the door. He was surprised to find Zelos and Lloyd grinning at him. He couldn’t imagine why they’d be here; they should know he was intending to spend the day with Marta as usual. “Zelos, Lloyd! Did you need something?”

“Whoa, way to be cold, man!” The redhead exclaimed, throwing his arm around Emil and inviting himself in. “Can’t a guy just want to hang out with two of his best buds, nowadays? Sheesh!” 

“Sorry to drop in like this, Emil.” Lloyd spoke, entering the house with a nod.

“So, where’s the lady of the house?” Zelos grinned, his arm still hanging from Emil’s neck.

Emil gestured down the hallway toward their room. “Marta’s been in there all day.” 

At the mention of her name, Marta peeked her head out of the room and gave a smile when she noticed who was here. “Oh! Zelos, Lloyd, whatever could you be doing here?” She actually knew exactly what they were doing here, and her unnatural way of speaking was enough to prove she was failing miserably trying to pretend that she didn’t. 

In an effort to take the attention off Marta, Zelos spoke again. “Well, you see, Marta dear, we were hoping we might borrow Emil for a bit.”

“Oh, sorry Zelos, Marta and I were actually going to—“ the blonde tried to refuse, but was cut off by the ‘lady of the house’ as Zelos so dubbed her. 

“That’s fine with me!”

“M-Marta?”

“It’ll only be for a little while, right? Besides, I don’t want to keep you cooped up here all day—go out and have some fun! Just not _too_ much fun, okay?” 

“W-wait, but Marta, I thought—“

“Well, the lady has spoken!” Zelos announced, dragging the helpless Emil away and out the door. 

The blonde had actually looked a little sad about how easily Marta was willing to let him go; they always spent Valentine’s Day together, yet Marta almost seemed like she _wanted_ him out of the house. But that couldn’t be it, right?

As Emil and Zelos left, Lloyd stayed behind to speak with Marta.

“Thank you again for doing this, Lloyd. You’ll only have to distract him for an hour or two, and then I should have everything all set! You’re sure Colette is okay with you being gone for so long?”

“No problem, Marta. Colette was actually excited about it, she said it was a great plan and she was trying to find ways she could help out, too.”

“Sounds like Colette, all right!” Marta gave a giggle as she waved goodbye to Lloyd, who was headed out the door. 

“Oh, and don’t worry. I’ll make sure Zelos doesn’t get Emil into any trouble or anything.”

“Thanks, Lloyd, I’m counting on you!”

As the door closed, Marta spun on her heels and dashed toward the kitchen. She had just finished wrapping his gift, a brand new scarf he’d been eyeing every time they went into town together. All that was left was dinner and dessert. She had everything planned out—she’d prepare all of his favorites, and they’d have dinner by candlelight, and then they’d have some heart-shaped cookies for dessert. It was perfect!

The idea struck her two weeks ago—around the same time her flower-adorned head was swimming with the countless cheesy romance movies she had watched in honor of Valentine’s Day finally being around the corner. Making dinner was a no-brainer, after all, it was kind of a Valentine’s Day must. Though she had one problem: her cooking. While she certainly had improved since she met Emil, she was a far cry from taking over nightly dinner duties. No, that was Emil’s job—they decided that when they moved in together. Still, in her mind, that made it all the more perfect. She was determined to surprise him with a delicious, romantic Valentine’s feast, no matter how hard she had to work to pull it off. 

It wasn’t as though Marta wasn’t born a bad cook, really, she just never had anyone to teach her; though it seemed like it would take a miracle to help her advance so far in the time she had left until Valentine’s day. Luckily for her, two of the world’s frequent saviors knew their way around a kitchen-- and the heroes of world regeneration had a history with pulling off miracles. Upon hearing her master plan, Regal most humbly offered to help her as best he could, and Genis was more than happy to leave his post as his sister’s test-subject (he didn’t even want to _look_ at chocolate ever again). With some proper instruction and lots and lots of practice, Marta actually managed to create some pretty tasty dishes. Regal and Genis were both satisfied with their tutoring—at least now they could rest easy that she wouldn’t poison Emil.

Emil, of course, had to be kept entirely in the dark for all of this. She wished she could have spent the whole day with him, but she was sure her surprise was worth it. She had to be resolute! She spent two weeks practicing for today, after all, she couldn’t let it all go to waste! --Even though she really felt like telling him and blowing the whole surprise when she saw the sadness in his eyes as he left. She mentally apologized a thousand times to him.  
About an hour and a half had passed and she was just about finished. She whipped out cookie dough at the speed of light and had her little creations in the oven before she even knew it. Of course, she followed the recipe approved by Genis and Regal every step of the way. 

Emil would be home soon, and dinner was nearly served—everything was going perfectly! She skipped out of the kitchen to grab his present and set it up on the table. Her carefully chosen gift was in a pure white rectangular box, with pink ribbons tied neatly around it. She placed the gift in the center of their dining table and hopped into the kitchen to sniff the wonderful smells—the wonderful smells? Where were the wonderful smells? The only thing she smelled was the scent of burning flour—and then it hit her like a slap in the face, which is coincidentally exactly what she wanted to give herself the second she realized what she had done. 

“The cookies!” She shrieked, grabbing a pair of oven mitts and throwing the oven door open. She grabbed the tray out and slammed it down onto the counter—  
They were black. Pure black. Burnt so well they would probably make Efreet proud. It was over, it was all over. There was nowhere near enough time to make new cookies. No—she still had dinner to fall back on! She could still salvage this!

She pushed the cookie tray to the side and focused on the meal she had made. She pulled out some utensils and gave everything a taste but it… it was all wrong! It tasted awful! She flung out her recipe and went over every ingredient she added—she had added everything hadn’t she? Yes, she had, but she misread the amount of salt she needed to add. She had way more than doubled what she needed to put in! She wandered lifelessly into the dining room and flopped helplessly into a chair, her forehead slamming onto the table. How could she have made such a critical error at this point? Maybe she really was fated to be a horrible cook after all.

And then, the worst of all—she heard the door open, and then close. Zelos and Lloyd had done everything she asked of them, but she still couldn’t pull it off in the end. Emil was home and she had no romantic dinner to impress him with.

She heard Emil call her name but she just couldn’t bring herself to reply—now his footsteps were coming closer, and—yep. He found her. Time to face the music.

“Marta! What’s wrong?” He rushed over as soon as he saw her, kneeling down in an effort to be eyelevel with her. 

She couldn’t look at him-- she couldn’t even bring herself to answer him; instead, she threw her arm out, pointing towards the kitchen. Then, her arm fell as lifeless as she felt onto the table. 

Emil hesitantly walked over towards the kitchen, his nose instantly taking note of the burnt cookies before he even saw them. Once he saw the tray and the abandoned dishes, he was able to put the pieces together. He couldn’t help but smile at her effort—he could tell she tried her hardest, even if it didn’t turn out well. He walked back to her and kneeled again before her. “So, earlier, all of that was—“

“I asked them to help me keep you busy so I could surprise you. Looks like I failed, though.”

“Marta, look at me.” He placed his hand on her knee. “Marta.”

“No! I couldn’t even—I couldn’t even do something as simple as making dinner. I practiced so hard but it still came out awful.”

“Marta.” He repeated, his voice gentle and kind—the tone of voice he knew full well she couldn’t say no to. She turned her head, which was still on the table, to look at him, her eyes filled to the brim with despair. She felt like bursting into tears seeing how worried he was over her—he always did everything for her, but she couldn’t even do this one simple thing for him. 

“Oh, Marta.” His eyes softened as he gazed at her. “I’ve never had anyone who would do this for me before, you know that, right? Just knowing that you would go so far for me… That makes me happier than anything else.”  
She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes—and oh, oh, she really didn’t want to cry, but she just couldn’t help it; she loved him too much! She nearly leaped off her chair, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. It was a given that he embraced her with the kind of tenderness he reserved for Marta alone. They stayed there together for some time, just holding each other. 

“Sorry, I got your scarf all wet.” Marta sniffled, a couple last tears falling onto his shoulder.

“It’s okay.” He loosened his hold on her so he could wipe the teardrops from her eyes. 

“Oh, but, I do have this.” Marta finally broke their hug, grabbing the gift she had left on the table and settling down next to him again. “Here, open it.”

“Alright.” He gave her a smile as he took the box from her. He opened it slowly, carefully removing the ribbons on the package (he knew Marta liked to save them if they were in good enough condition). Then, he opened the box and his eyes instantly lit up at its contents. He took off his old scarf immediately and wrapped the new one around his neck. “Marta, this is—“

“D-do you like it?” She eagerly questioned, though she could pretty much knew the answer already. 

“I love it.” He bent over, ignoring the pink tint in his cheeks, and allowed his lips to grace her cheek. It was Valentine’s Day, after all, he might as well try to be a little romantic. Marta did like that kind of thing. 

Marta’s cheeks were even redder than Emil’s—just when had that timid boy she used to know gotten so bold? Before she knew it, he had stood up and grabbed a little white box of his own. She took it in her hands and eyed the lovely wrapping; it was even better than the wrapping job on her gift, though she hated to admit it. She opened it up and a bright smile found its way onto her face within moments. Inside the box was a beautiful flower charm, nearly identical to the flowers she wore in her hair, attached to a long silver necklace. “Oh, Emil! Its beautiful!” She exclaimed, her eyes practically begging him for help putting it on. 

“Here, I’ll help you put it on.” He gently took the necklace from the box, and lowered it onto her neck, fastening it as carefully as he could so he didn’t pull her hair. 

“Emil, it’s perfect. Thank you!” She beamed at him, returning his earlier gesture by leaving a light kiss on his cheek. 

Afterward, Emil helped Marta make a quick dinner, but had the brilliant idea of having a carpet-picnic. Marta set up all of the candles and set down the blankets, and Emil placed all the food. Marta found that making something together was a lot more fun than stressing about being secretive and surprising him; in fact, she wished they had just done this from the beginning.

It wasn’t exactly how their night was supposed to go, but it was a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with the boy she loved more than anyone else, so she couldn’t complain.


End file.
